Approaches To Literature
by writtenbyabdex
Summary: A combination of class assignments based on readings of differing literary authors. There is no rhyme nor reason other than they were assignments I thought you might enjoy.
1. Chapter 1, Entrenched

Creative Response 2

The Lady of the House of Love

By Angela Carter

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For this assignment, you will write a creative response to any short story we have studied so far. Think of it as a creative re-imagining of the story in which you engage with some aspect of the work, be it formal, moral, social, psychological, or historical, in order to reflect on the meaning of the original even as you make new art spring from it. (1-2 pages, 250-500 words).

Remember, this creative re-telling of a story is a way to further analyze the formalistic or other critical theories we've discussed to gain new insight into how those literary theories create meaning in a story. Also, make sure to come up with a title for your essay, too.

 _ **Entrenched**_

It was in the battle ridden trenches of France where the hero crouched on his belly wishing to return to the uncomfortable night, an eternity ago, he had spent in a mansion on a dirt floor; his stomach full and his thirst quenched. It had been dry there and a roof had covered his head. The shackled ruins' now seemed to him the Chateau of old. He had been the company of a beautiful, albeit mysterious woman, whom he had encountered there. It is not the beauty of her flesh he recalled, for he could hardly remember the lines of her face, but the child-like incarnation of her spirit and a wisdom of the ancients that cascade the depths of her eyes.

How long had it been since he had lost his innocent outlook on life? Was it when the first round of combat that seared his skin, or when he witnessed death for the first time? The last time he had felt joy or excitement was the early morning hours after discovering the woman-child dressed in her mother's wedding dress, whom had succumbed to her frail nature. Her soul had touched the morning light and flew through the window on the wings of her yellow canary. Maybe it was the innocent gesture of caring for her wounded finger and the realization that maybe the intimacy of the moment was more than he had wanted. What was it she had mumbled in her sleep? "Can a bird learn a new song?" What must have she been dreaming? He doubted he would ever know; an excruciating distraction. If not a new song, would any song do?

Unlike the discovery of her peaceful slumber, death had become a cruel angel to him, always waiting, but never taking a step closer. Death would be a great comfort in view of what he witnessed in the light of day and darkness of night. The nightmare of war would forever be engraved upon his memory; the last nightmare he would see when he opened his eyes, and the first wraith he would recall when his eyelids dammed the rest of the world.

If only it were food that would fill the emptiness and drive away the loneliness that pulled at the foundation of his sanity fastened in the mud and mire of a war, not of his own making, he would starve. Be it not food or drink that would sustain him but an element of amore yet to call upon him, a phenomenon he would never know if death stepped intimately his way.

His hand of cards, dealt, pervade evening across an eternity. The past, all but gone; the future, imperceptible. The stones cast for today, survival; tomorrow, only imagined.

How he longed for the pungent fragrance of roses. Even their heavy aroma was preferable against that of the life-sustaining blood that drained from his comrades dying corpses. And their thorns, but a pleasurable pain weighed against the suffering of those waiting and begging for death.


	2. Chapter 2, And Satan Was A Woman

For this assignment, you will write a creative response to any short story we have studied so far. Think of it as a creative re-imagining of the story in which you engage with some aspect of the work, be it formal, moral, social, psychological, or historical, in order to reflect on the meaning of the original even as you make new art spring from it. (500+ words)

Here are few ideas, but it's completely okay to come up with an idea of your own, too:

You might imagine rewriting a scene from the perspective of a minor or marginal character to see how that might change the story. You could try crafting a prequel or sequel response to the events of the fiction. You could imagine writing a "lost" letter from one character to another. You could change the setting, either shifting the location to a different geography or even a different time period.

* * *

And Satan Was a Woman

If we thought that Mrs. Emily's death two years ago was the end of the story, and in many ways for her it was, we were mistaken. For our town, it was the beginning of public speculation, innuendoes, and something so sinister, it was unbelievable. Gossip, once spoken between neighbors, "Poor, Miss Emily," became sensationalized headlines of horror. If only the truth had been known from the beginning. Details, hidden by veiled curtains, came to light the day council members broke down the door of Miss Emily's upstairs bedroom. Criminal, scientific, and psychiatric hypothesis became the town's mascot, a national spotlight shined upon us and burned us to the quick. Old men who had worn uniforms, reminiscing about their courting days, shook their heads in disbelief.

"It's not true, we were there—We should know!" they exclaimed.

It was no wonder the old negro that worked for Miss Emily had walked out the back door as if a fire had been set under his feet. If what he had seen, for all those years, going in and out of that house was half what the media portrayed, then Satan was a woman. Her name was Miss Emily Grierson and not the angelic resemblance of a cherub that many had claimed.

"Hear, Yee! Hear, Yee! Read all about it!" the paper boys shout. "New Evidence proves death was murder!" First, there was confusion, then disbelief, and finally horror among those who read the paper.

A sense of resignation, over the discovery of Homer Barron's remains, filled the community and the fact that he had been murdered was not all too surprising—when you listened to the gossips.

If truth be told, what had the town a buzz was the murder that happened almost sixty years earlier. It seemed as if science had proven what no one even suspected. Miss Elizabeth Wyatt's death was a case of Arsenic poisoning. Miss Emily was just shy of her 15th birthday. At the time, it had been determined Miss Wyatt's death was a result of a careless fall where she had bumped her head as she stepped off her porch and greeted one of her cousins.

The exhumation of Mr. Greirson horrified the town of Aldermen when the results confirmed the second death associated with the Grierson family—Arsenic poisoning. Gossip spread like wildfire. Old men shook their heads, and old women whispered behind their hands. It was for the men's sake who had sought Miss Emily's affections that her father chased them off, not to rob her of her womanhood. They had always wondered how a man as robust as he died from a little sip of the bottle. By the time that Homer Barron's murder by the same means was acknowledged, the community was numb. No longer was there doubt that Miss Emily had poisoned him. The unforeseen declaration was how long Miss Emily's lover had been kept as a prisoner. Some hypothesis that it could be as long as ten years.

The true tragedy of these crimes is not the deaths themselves, but that for all the times the inhabitance of Alderman looked the other way, whispering behind their hands or closed doors, "poor, Miss Emily," they failed to see the truth of the situation, and take action against hell itself. The blood of those murdered was a stain in the palms of those that whispered, "Poor Miss Emily."

* * *

This one got me an A!


	3. Chapter 3, ChinWag

**If all the characters from the short stories (and one novel we've read) got together and had a chinwag about which one of them deserves to be the most upset with their author, who do you think would make the best argument and why? What would they say? Aim for 2 to 3 pages.**

ChinWag: Meeting of Female Characters Support Group

"After spending weeks with a wonderful tailor, make sure every detail of my dress was just right, my writer focuses on the mental debate I had with myself, making it sound like I was comparing myself to the other women at that party and measuring the outcome that said, 'I was found lacking.' The only one lacking that night was my husband! If only he would have noticed all the effort I put into looking my best that night, the night that might get him that next promotion. He didn't even turn his head. All Charles had to do was say one nice word and maybe then my husband would have taken a second look at me. Oh wait, correction, first look!." Mabel said starting the conversation.

It was the annual meeting of women characters of short stories. Their husbands, significant others, and men, in general, referred to it as a new age stitch and bitch. That description might not be far from the truth at times, though at the end of the day, the women who attended did find that there was strength in numbers.

"Don't get me wrong, I love my writer. Virginia Woolf has a wicked imagination and a way with words that would make the Pope himself, stop and ponder, but sometimes it would be nice to state what the problem is, in plain English, instead of making me feel like I'm crazy. I'll bet that there were only a few people who even ponder that the real issue was. How many of her readers saw that it wasn't the library I was going to the next day? Zip! Nada! Zero! It wasn't the party that was full of lies, but my marriage. I went to Hubert's competitor the next day," Mabel continued. "Mamma, your writer can get descriptive, but she doesn't loose sight of what is really going on in the lives of those she writes about? Did you see my visit to the divorce lawyer coming?"

"Well now," Mamma said, as if this were an everyday conversation, "I reckon that had I been a woman that spent much time sitting in a rocking chair, reading, it would have surprised me, but as a woman who has her own mind and can see with 20/20 vision with my glasses now, I can honestly say, I wondered what took you so long. As good a man as Hubert was, God rest his soul, he seemed to lack any emotions at all. Even a little anger might have done his personality some good. He always wondered why he never got anywhere, I'd say it was cause he had no life in him, just an empty body, poor soul that he was." Mamma shook her head from side to side while looking at the dirt laying between the arches of her feet. "but let's not talk ill of the dead, it brings no good to the living."

"How is Alice, Mamma? I haven't seen her in a while," the woman sitting next to her asked.

"She be doing real good. She's at home working on another story about something or another. You know me, I ain't to bothered by nothing. I do what I do, maybe sit and do some quilting with Maggie. We just live a simple life. What about you, Mrs. Vhd Vhd? You never say much. What you want your writer to know?"

"Mamma, you always know how to get out of a conversation and shine the light on someone else." The woman replied with a light laugh behind her words, lightly slapping Mamma's knee in a friendly gesture. "It's Mrs. Moon, now. I am so grateful that Italo Calvino let me out of my contract of sitting in that boat wasting my musical talents on that pack of ungrateful wolves. People think that he was a good journalist and writer, but I couldn't wait to get away from him. He makes me a Sea Captain's wife, has me play the harp for crew mates, lets a crushing juvenile grab my breast and keeps my husband from saying anything. And to top it off, he turns me into some kind of cradle robbing cougar, chasing after a deaf kid. Calvino showed just what kind of chauvinistic individual he is. Yes, I followed the deaf cousin to the moon, but not because I was in love with him. I didn't want him to find the man on the moon. When everyone else was busy collecting moon milk, I would play my harp to let him know we were coming or that we were there. I could see him hiding behind the moon rock listening. I was the only one who saw him. Every time we came out on the water, I could see how he seemed to be further and further away, I knew I would have to make a decision soon, so when I knew anyone would be hard pressed to return and that the distance between the moon and earth was too great to cross, I took my chance, only to have a horny teenager standing on my heels. I was devastated. As long as that kid was on the moon trying to seduce me, there was no way that the man on the moon was going to come to me. He would continue to make himself invisible. I was so thankful when the distance between the moon and earth narrowed just long enough for Qfwfq to be rescued. His cousin's determination was my saving grace. I'm still disgusted with men who think that it is alright to sexualize women and act like that is the way it is supposed to be. And a man who does not defend his wife's honor but grins at her displeasure is not a man, nor a husband.

"Well, I guess this concludes the meeting of female characters of short stories. Let's pencil in September 1st, 2017 our next meeting. All in favor, say I." Mabel suggested as she scratched something in her notebook.

"I!" declared all the women present before standing and hugging each other vowing to meet again on the designated date.


End file.
